PM to fly for Riyadh tomorrow

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina will fly to Riyadh on Saturday to attend Arab-Islamic-US summit hosted by Saudi king Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.US president Donald Trump, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Iraqi president Fuad Masum, among others, are likely to attend the summit scheduled for Sunday. The summit is likely to discuss the possibility of building new partnerships for establishing mechanisms to contain extremism, foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali told a press conference on Thursday. Giving hints about Bangladesh’s possible position in the summit, Ali said, ‘It is necessary to end wars in West Asia for peace in the region and beyond.’ On the possibility of deploying Bangladeshi troops under the Saudi-led Global Centre for Combating Extremist Ideology, the minister said that it was ‘premature’ to say anything as the alliance ‘is still at the formation stage with hardly anything in black and white’. Ali, however, reiterated the government’s position that armed troops would be sent to Saudi Arabia to protect the two holy mosques, Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina, if the kingdom requested for troops.US president Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he would use his upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia to urge the leaders of Muslim countries to ‘fight hatred and extremism’ while pursuing a peaceful future for their faith, according to Reuters. Hasina would visit Mecca and Medina on Monday before returning home on Tuesday. Foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali and foreign secretary M Shahidul Haque are expected to accompany the prime minister on the trip.